President Donald Trump says the United States is helping Japan prop up the yen as a sign of friendship and to help the world economy.
“They have a weakening yen, and they wanted a little bit of help. And we’re always there for Japan,” Trump said when he was asked by a reporter why the US is helping to support the yen.
“Japan’s been very good to us, with the exception, of course, of Pearl Harbor … It’s also good for the world economy,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama will announce on Monday that Tokyo and Washington took joint action in the currency market to arrest the yen’s slide to 40-year lows, two Japanese government officials told Reuters.
Japan is expected to announce it took joint action with the US to halt the yen’s slide to 40-year lows and express its commitment to rare bilateral co-ordination that it hopes could mark a turning point for the currency.
Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama will announce that Tokyo and Washington acted together in the currency market last week to arrest what they consider excessive yen declines, two Japanese government officials told Reuters over the weekend, with one saying the operation was “still ongoing”.
Her expected remarks to reporters follow what market sources say were rounds of yen purchases by the Japanese and US authorities, the first joint intervention in 15 years, seeking to support the battered currency.
Japan has been struggling to curb a relentless drop in the yen that pushes up import prices and stokes broader inflation, hitting households’ wallets and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s public approval ratings.
Japan may have sold as much as $58.97 billion to buy yen when it intervened in New York markets on Thursday, Bank of Japan data indicated, followed by another suspected foray into the market on Friday.
On Friday, the US Treasury told a number of banks it too might intervene in the yen market, a source told Reuters, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent – who had said the yen “seems very undervalued” – had a handwritten “To Do” list at a cabinet meeting that said, “Buy Japanese Yen (JPY) $5-10 bil”, a Reuters photo showed.
In line with Bessent’s repeated calls for higher Japanese interest rates, the Bank of Japan on Friday offered its most explicit signal to date of an early rate hike, even as it kept monetary policy steady.
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